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December 2, 2009

Black-owned newspapers have a tough enough time being profitable and relevant in the new information age. It doesn't help when Black-owned newspapers think it is humorous to portray African American female leaders as Aunt Jemima.

Call&Post is a weekly newspaper published in Cleveland OH. Call&Post editors thought it would be funny to portray Sen. Nina Turner as Aunt Jemima, a character most people of African descent consider to be offensive because of its use as a racist stereotype.

The paper criticized Turner, a Cleveland Democrat, for supporting last month's successful ballot issue to overhaul county government. Some Blacks fear the changes will reduce minority political power. I'm fine with calling out policies or politicians when you disagree with them. I think it is hateful and poor judgement in the extreme to personally denigrate a Black woman by comparing her to Aunt Jemima.

9 comments:

I worked as an editor of a black newspaper for 3 years, and have also worked for years in alternative3 as well as mainstream dailies. I respect the history of our black dailies - why and how they came to be, sounding the alarm when few others would - but I believe these days there are few if any black newspapers living up to spirit of the original mission. This cartoon is so far out of line it's not even worth discussing. Any right-minded person should see it has no place in any legitimate newspaper.

And in a black newspaper...? Jesus. Either that paper better get its mission straight or I'm betting its doors will be closed forever within the next decade. And maybe within the next 5 years.

I cannot fathom the reasoning behind the action of the Call & Post Newsletter, and tried to leave no word unspoken regarding this issue on my blog at http://successisyou.blogspot.com/2009/12/power-and-sometimes-poison-of-pen.html

Good evening, I am not at all shockednor suprised giving that we have aBlack cable network "BET" that hasfor many years been a joke and produced nothing but foolishnessthat does a disservice to the Black community. The fact that a Black newspaper is now following suit is nothing shocking. You also have allotof radio that is just as bad.

Thank you so very much for covering this. I wrote on All About Race, where Carmen Dixon wrote about this situation, that I'm disappointed that there hasn't been more in terms of talk about how having allies could help this situation, but I attribute that to the lack of progress at some levels in Cleveland in terms of that kind of work, perhaps especially in our media - but I'm not sure.

In any case, thank you very very much and it's been great seeing people rally on Facebook. I actually would most like to hear from Ms. Turner, who I don't know but know many people, black and white, in this community, who have great respect for her - agree or disagree with her position on the local issue of county reform.